Mea Culpa

I used to date her sister Vivian.  Vivian Culpa.

If I were you I'd leave that joke alone.  It rarely works.
Good idea.
Maybe if it was spelled "Mia" instead of "Mea" ...
Maybe.
Stick to the cheese joke.  And the one about the brake fluid.  They're both strong.
Thanks.

It's still early, but perhaps I should go on record as saying that I may have underestimated four-time Formula One champion Sebastian Vettel.  Which is an astonishing thing to say, given that the previous sentence includes the words "four-time Formula One champion," but there is a school of thought that says I (if I dropped, say, a hundred pounds) could have won two of those championships had I been driving a Red Bull.  The point being that the Red Bull car was so vastly superior to the competition that any competent driver could have won in it.

But those days are behind us, friends.  The bells are ringing again in Maranello.  Cue the Prancing Horse amidst choruses of Hallelujah ...

People always talk about how beautiful Brandi Carlisle's version of Hallelujah is, but they never mention how sad the song is too ...

Well I heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor (you know)
I used to live alone before I knew you
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
and love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah

The key lines come near the end: "All I ever learned from love/Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you."  Wow.  That's pretty sad.

So maybe the Tifosi should be singing something else.  Here, this will do ...



It's my boy Leonard Bernstein, from whom we don't hear enough now that he's dead, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic back in 1979.  And I'm not talking Vienna, Virginia.

The tune is Beethoven's 9th, and it looks like they've got about a hundred people ready to sing the choral section at the end.

Hallelujah!